Trimming the genomic fat: minimising and re-functionalising genomes using synthetic biology

The design and engineering of synthetic genomes

Synthetic genomics seeks to design and construct entire genomes to mechanistically dissect fundamental questions of genome function and to engineer organisms for diverse applications, including bioproduction of high-value chemicals and biologics, advanced cell therapies, and stress-tolerant crops. Recent progress has been fuelled by advancements in DNA synthesis, assembly, delivery and editing. Computational innovations, such as the use of artificial intelligence to provide prediction of function, also provide increasing capabilities to guide synthetic genome design and construction. However, translating synthetic genome-scale projects from idea to implementation remains highly complex. Here, we aim to streamline this implementation process by comprehensively reviewing the strategies for design, construction, delivery, debugging and tailoring of synthetic genomes as well as their potential applications.

The Occurrence, Uses, Biosynthetic Pathway, and Biotechnological Production of Plumbagin, a Potent Antitumor Naphthoquinone

Plumbagin is an important naphthoquinone with potent anticancer properties besides multitudinous uses in healthcare. It is produced in a limited number of species and families but mostly in the roots of Plumbaginaceae family members. The biosynthetic pathway and the genes that regulate plumbagin synthesis are not completely known, but details of these are being revealed. Several species, including Plumbago, Drosera, and others, are being uprooted for the extraction of plumbagin by pharmaceutical industries, leading to the destruction of natural habitats. The pharmaceutical industry is therefore facing an acute shortage of plant material. This necessitates enhancing the accumulation of plumbagin using suspensions and hairy roots to meet market demands. Many factors, such as the aggregate size of the inoculum, stability of the culture, and the sequential effects of elicitors, immobilization, and permeabilization, have been demonstrated to act synergistically and markedly augment plumbagin accumulation. Hairy root cultures can be used for the large-scale production, growth, and plumbagin accumulation, and the exploration of their efficacy is now imperative. The secretion of compounds into the spent medium and their in situ adsorption via resin has remarkable potential, but this has not been thoroughly exploited. Improvements in the quality of biomass, selection of cell lines, and production of plumbagin in bioreactors have thus far been sporadic, and these parameters need to be further exploited. In this review, we report the advances made relating to the importance of stable cell line selection for the accumulation of compounds in long-term cultures, hairy root cultures for the accumulation of plumbagin, and its semicontinuous production via total cell recycling in different types of bioreactors. Such advances might pave the way for industrial exploitation. The steps in the biosynthetic pathway that are currently understood might also aid us in isolating the relevant genes in order to examine the effects of their overexpression or heterologous downregulation or to edit the genome using CRISPR-Cas9 technology in order to enhance the accumulation of plumbagin. Its potential as an anticancer molecule and its mode of action have been amply demonstrated, but plumbagin has not been exploited in clinics due to its insolubility in water and its highly lipophilic nature. Plumbagin-loaded nanoemulsions, plumbagin-silver, or albumin nanoparticle formulations can overcome these problems relating to its solubility and are currently being tried to improve its bioavailability and antiproliferative activities, as discussed in the current paper.

BGC heteroexpression strategy for production of novel microbial secondary metabolites

Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in microbial genomes play a crucial role in the biosynthesis of diverse secondary metabolites (SMs) with pharmaceutical potential. However, most BGCs remain silent under conventional conditions, resulting in the frequently repeated discovery of known SMs. Fortunately, in the past two decades, the heterologous expression of BGCs in genetically tractable hosts has emerged as a powerful strategy to awaken microbial metabolic pathways for making novel microbial SMs. In this review, we comprehensively delineated the development and application of this strategy, highlighting various BGC cloning and assembly techniques and their technical characteristics. We also summarized 519 novel SMs from BGC hetero-expression-derived strains and described their occurrence, bioactivity, mode of action, and biosynthetic logic. Lastly, current challenges and future perspectives for developing more efficient BGC hetero-expression strategies were discussed in this review.

The coming wave of confluent biosynthetic, bioinformational and bioengineering technologies

Information and energy flows form the basis of all economic activity, with advanced technologies underpinning both. Profound uncertainties caused by geostrategic forces have accelerated a trillion-dollar race for technological superiority. The result is an onrush of "technovation" at the nexus of synthetic biotechnologies, information technologies, nanotechnologies and engineering technologies. This article explores recent breakthroughs in integrating chip technologies and synthetic bioinformational engineering. It investigates prospects of biomolecules as carriers of stored digital data, synthetic cells-on-a-chip, and hybrid semiconductors and next-generation artificial intelligence processors. Consilience-unity of knowledge-redefines possibilities emerging from the living interface of biologically-inspired engineering and engineering-enabled biology.

Multiplex generation and single-cell analysis of structural variants in mammalian genomes

Studying the functional consequences of structural variants (SVs) in mammalian genomes is challenging because (i) SVs arise much less commonly than single-nucleotide variants or small indels and (ii) methods to generate, map, and characterize SVs in model systems are underdeveloped. To address these challenges, we developed Genome-Shuffle-seq, a method that enables the multiplex generation and mapping of thousands of SVs (deletions, inversions, translocations, and extrachromosomal circles) throughout mammalian genomes. We also demonstrate the co-capture of SV identity with single-cell transcriptomes, facilitating the measurement of SV impact on gene expression. We anticipate that Genome-Shuffle-seq will be broadly useful for the systematic exploration of the functional consequences of SVs on gene expression, the chromatin landscape, and three-dimensional nuclear architecture, while also initiating a path toward a minimal mammalian genome.

Construction and iterative redesign of synXVI a 903 kb synthetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome

The Sc2.0 global consortium to design and construct a synthetic genome based on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome commenced in 2006, comprising 16 synthetic chromosomes and a new-to-nature tRNA neochromosome. In this paper we describe assembly and debugging of the 902,994-bp synthetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome synXVI of the Sc2.0 project. Application of the CRISPR D-BUGS protocol identified defective loci, which were modified to improve sporulation and recover wild-type like growth when grown on glycerol as a sole carbon source when grown at 37˚C. LoxPsym sites inserted downstream of dubious open reading frames impacted the 5' UTR of genes required for optimal growth and were identified as a systematic cause of defective growth. Based on lessons learned from analysis of Sc2.0 defects and synXVI, an in-silico redesign of the synXVI chromosome was performed, which can be used as a blueprint for future synthetic yeast genome designs. The in-silico redesign of synXVI includes reduced PCR tag frequency, modified chunk and megachunk termini, and adjustments to allocation of loxPsym sites and TAA stop codons to dubious ORFs. This redesign provides a roadmap into applications of Sc2.0 strategies in non-yeast organisms.

Evaluation of Stress Tolerance and Fermentation Performance in Commercial Yeast Strains for Industrial Applications

This study evaluates the stress tolerance and metabolic adaptability of twelve yeast strains, including eleven commercial strains from Wyeast Laboratories and one prototrophic laboratory strain, under industrially relevant conditions. Yeast strains were assessed for their fermentation performance and stress responses under glucose limitation, osmotic stress, acid stress, elevated ethanol concentrations, and temperature fluctuations. Results revealed significant variability in glucose consumption, ethanol production, and stress tolerance across strains. ACY34 and ACY84 demonstrated the highest fermentation efficiency, while ACY19 exhibited exceptional stress resilience, excelling under multiple stress conditions such as osmotic and ethanol stress. The findings highlight strain-specific performance, with some strains suited for high-yield fermentation and others excelling under challenging environmental conditions. These results provide critical insights for selecting and optimizing yeast strains tailored to specific industrial fermentation processes, contributing to improved productivity and product quality in food and beverage production.

Cyanamide-inducible expression of homing nuclease I- SceI for selectable marker removal and promoter characterisation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In synthetic biology, microbial chassis including yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are iteratively engineered with increasing complexity and scale. Wet-lab genetic engineering tools are developed and optimised to facilitate strain construction but are often incompatible with each other due to shared regulatory elements, such as the galactose-inducible (GAL) promoter in S. cerevisiae. Here, we prototyped the cyanamide-induced I- SceI expression, which triggered double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) for selectable marker removal. We further combined cyanamide-induced I- SceI-mediated DSB and maltose-induced MazF-mediated negative selection for plasmid-free in situ promoter substitution, which simplified the molecular cloning procedure for promoter characterisation. We then characterised three tetracycline-inducible promoters showing differential strength, a non-leaky β-estradiol-inducible promoter, cyanamide-inducible DDI2 promoter, bidirectional MAL32/MAL31 promoters, and five pairs of bidirectional GAL1/GAL10 promoters. Overall, alternative regulatory controls for genome engineering tools can be developed to facilitate genomic engineering for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering applications.

Plasmid-encoded phosphatase RapP enhances cell growth in non-domesticated Bacillus subtilis strains

The trade-off between rapid growth and other important physiological traits (e.g., survival and adaptability) poses a fundamental challenge for microbes to achieve fitness maximization. Studies on Bacillus subtilis biology often use strains derived after a process of lab 'domestication' from an ancestral strain known as Marburg strain. The domestication process led to loss of a large plasmid (pBS32) encoding a phosphatase (RapP) that dephosphorylates the Spo0F protein and thus regulates biofilm formation and sporulation. Here, we show that plasmid pBS32, and more specifically rapP, enhance growth rates by preventing premature expression of the Spo0F-Spo0A-mediated adaptive response during exponential phase. This results in reallocation of proteome resources towards biosynthetic, growth-promoting pathways without compromising long-term fitness during stationary phase. Thus, RapP helps B. subtilis to constrain physiological trade-offs and economize cellular resources for fitness improvement.

Yeast-based screening platforms to understand and improve human health

Detailed molecular understanding of the human organism is essential to develop effective therapies. Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used extensively for acquiring insights into important aspects of human health, such as studying genetics and cell-cell communication, elucidating protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks, and investigating human G protein-coupled receptor (hGPCR) signaling. We highlight recent advances and opportunities of yeast-based technologies for cost-efficient chemical library screening on hGPCRs, accelerated deciphering of PPI networks with mating-based screening and selection, and accurate cell-cell communication with human immune cells. Overall, yeast-based technologies constitute an important platform to support basic understanding and innovative applications towards improving human health.

Recent Advances in the Biosynthesis of Mid- and Long-Chain Dicarboxylic Acids Using Terminally Oxidizing Unconventional Yeasts

As high-performance monomers for the manufacture of polyamide materials, mid- and long-chain dicarboxylic acids (DCAi, i ≥ 6) have received extensive attention from researchers. Biosynthesis is gradually replacing chemical synthesis due to its outstanding advantages in the industrial production of mid- and long-chain dicarboxylic acids, which is mostly achieved by using the strong terminal oxidation ability of nonmodel microorganisms such as Candida tropicalis to oxidize hydrophobic substrates such as alkanes. Here, we first summarize the metabolic pathways of oxidative alkane conversion into dicarboxylic acid by terminally oxidizing unconventional yeasts and the corresponding metabolic engineering strategies. Then, we summarize the research progress on new dicarboxylic acid production processes. Finally, the future development directions in the biosynthesis of mid- and long-chain dicarboxylic acids are prospected from synthetic biology and bioprocess engineering, which can also provide a reference for the synthesis of other biobased chemicals and biomaterials.

Evolution recovers the fitness of Acinetobacter baylyi strains with large deletions through mutations in deletion-specific targets and global post-transcriptional regulators

Organelles and endosymbionts have naturally evolved dramatically reduced genome sizes compared to their free-living ancestors. Synthetic biologists have purposefully engineered streamlined microbial genomes to create more efficient cellular chassis and define the minimal components of cellular life. During natural or engineered genome streamlining, deletion of many non-essential genes in combination often reduces bacterial fitness for idiosyncratic or unknown reasons. We investigated how and to what extent laboratory evolution could overcome these defects in six variants of the transposon-free Acinetobacter baylyi strain ADP1-ISx that each had a deletion of a different 22- to 42-kilobase region and two strains with larger deletions of 70 and 293 kilobases. We evolved replicate populations of ADP1-ISx and each deletion strain for ~300 generations in a chemically defined minimal medium or a complex medium and sequenced the genomes of endpoint clonal isolates. Fitness increased in all cases that were examined except for two ancestors that each failed to improve in one of the two environments. Mutations affecting nine protein-coding genes and two small RNAs were significantly associated with one of the two environments or with certain deletion ancestors. The global post-transcriptional regulators rnd (ribonuclease D), csrA (RNA-binding carbon storage regulator), and hfq (RNA-binding protein and chaperone) were frequently mutated across all strains, though the incidence and effects of these mutations on gene function and bacterial fitness varied with the ancestral deletion and evolution environment. Mutations in this regulatory network likely compensate for how an earlier deletion of a transposon in the ADP1-ISx ancestor of all the deletion strains restored csrA function. More generally, our results demonstrate that fitness lost during genome streamlining can usually be regained rapidly through laboratory evolution and that recovery tends to occur through a combination of deletion-specific compensation and global regulatory adjustments.

EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Mullins E, Bresson J, Dewhurst IC, Epstein MM, Firbank LG, Guerche P, Hejatko J, Moreno FJ, Naegeli H, Nogué F, Rostoks N, Sánchez Serrano JJ, Savoini G, Veromann E, Veronesi F, Cocconcelli PS, Glandorf D, Herman L, Jimenez Saiz R, Ruiz Garcia L, Aguilera Entrena J, Gennaro A, Schoonjans R, Kagkli DM, Dalmay T. New developments in biotechnology applied to microorganisms

EFSA was requested by the European Commission (in accordance with Article 29 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002) to provide a scientific opinion on the application of new developments in biotechnology (new genomic techniques, NGTs) to viable microorganisms and products of category 4 to be released into the environment or placed on the market as or in food and feed, and to non-viable products of category 3 to be placed on the market as or in food and feed. A horizon scanning exercise identified a variety of products containing microorganisms obtained with NGTs (NGT-Ms), falling within the remit of EFSA, that are expected to be placed on the (EU) market in the next 10 years. No novel potential hazards/risks from NGT-Ms were identified as compared to those obtained by established genomic techniques (EGTs), or by conventional mutagenesis. Due to the higher efficiency, specificity and predictability of NGTs, the hazards related to the changes in the genome are likely to be less frequent in NGT-Ms than those modified by EGTs and conventional mutagenesis. It is concluded that EFSA guidances are 'partially applicable', therefore on a case-by-case basis for specific NGT-Ms, fewer requirements may be needed. Some of the EFSA guidances are 'not sufficient' and updates are recommended. Because possible hazards relate to genotypic and phenotypic changes introduced and not to the method used for the modification, it is recommended that any new guidance should take a consistent risk assessment approach for strains/products derived from or produced with microorganisms obtained with conventional mutagenesis, EGTs or NGTs.

The Lithbea Domain

The tree of life is the evolutionary metaphor for the past and present connections of all cellular organisms. Today, to speak of biodiversity is not only to speak of archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes, but they should also consider the "new biodiversity" that includes viruses and synthetic organisms, which represent the new forms of life created in laboratories. There is even a third group of artificial entities that, although not living systems, pretend to imitate the living. To embrace and organize all this new biodiversity, I propose the creation of a new domain, with the name Lithbea (from life-on-the-border entites) The criteria for inclusion as members of Lithbea are: i) the acellular nature of the living system, ii) its origin in laboratory manipulation, iii) showing new biological traits, iv) the presence of exogenous genetic elements, v) artificial or inorganic nature. Within Lithbea there are two subdomains: Virworld (from virus world) which includes all viruses, regarded as lifeless living systems, and classified according to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), and ii) Humade (from human-made) which includes all synthetic organisms and artificial entities. The relationships of Lithbea members to the three classical woesian domains and their implications are briefly discussed.

Building Synthetic Cells─From the Technology Infrastructure to Cellular Entities

The de novo construction of a living organism is a compelling vision. Despite the astonishing technologies developed to modify living cells, building a functioning cell "from scratch" has yet to be accomplished. The pursuit of this goal alone has─and will─yield scientific insights affecting fields as diverse as cell biology, biotechnology, medicine, and astrobiology. Multiple approaches have aimed to create biochemical systems manifesting common characteristics of life, such as compartmentalization, metabolism, and replication and the derived features, evolution, responsiveness to stimuli, and directed movement. Significant achievements in synthesizing each of these criteria have been made, individually and in limited combinations. Here, we review these efforts, distinguish different approaches, and highlight bottlenecks in the current research. We look ahead at what work remains to be accomplished and propose a "roadmap" with key milestones to achieve the vision of building cells from molecular parts.

Multiplex generation and single cell analysis of structural variants in a mammalian genome

The functional consequences of structural variants (SVs) in mammalian genomes are challenging to study. This is due to several factors, including: 1) their numerical paucity relative to other forms of standing genetic variation such as single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and short insertions or deletions (indels); 2) the fact that a single SV can involve and potentially impact the function of more than one gene and/or cis regulatory element; and 3) the relative immaturity of methods to generate and map SVs, either randomly or in targeted fashion, in in vitro or in vivo model systems. Towards addressing these challenges, we developed Genome-Shuffle-seq, a straightforward method that enables the multiplex generation and mapping of several major forms of SVs (deletions, inversions, translocations) throughout a mammalian genome. Genome-Shuffle-seq is based on the integration of "shuffle cassettes" to the genome, wherein each shuffle cassette contains components that facilitate its site-specific recombination (SSR) with other integrated shuffle cassettes (via Cre-loxP), its mapping to a specific genomic location (via T7-mediated in vitro transcription or IVT), and its identification in single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data (via T7-mediated in situ transcription or IST). In this proof-of-concept, we apply Genome-Shuffle-seq to induce and map thousands of genomic SVs in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) in a single experiment. Induced SVs are rapidly depleted from the cellular population over time, possibly due to Cre-mediated toxicity and/or negative selection on the rearrangements themselves. Leveraging T7 IST of barcodes whose positions are already mapped, we further demonstrate that we can efficiently genotype which SVs are present in association with each of many single cell transcriptomes in scRNA-seq data. Finally, preliminary evidence suggests our method may be a powerful means of generating extrachromosomal circular DNAs (ecDNAs). Looking forward, we anticipate that Genome-Shuffle-seq may be broadly useful for the systematic exploration of the functional consequences of SVs on gene expression, the chromatin landscape, and 3D nuclear architecture. We further anticipate potential uses for in vitro modeling of ecDNAs, as well as in paving the path to a minimal mammalian genome.

Recent advances in the characterization of essential genes and development of a database of essential genes

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant interest in the study of essential genes, which are crucial for the survival of an organism under specific environmental conditions and thus have practical applications in the fields of synthetic biology and medicine. An increasing amount of experimental data on essential genes has been obtained with the continuous development of technological methods. Meanwhile, various computational prediction methods, related databases and web servers have emerged accordingly. To facilitate the study of essential genes, we have established a database of essential genes (DEG), which has become popular with continuous updates to facilitate essential gene feature analysis and prediction, drug and vaccine development, as well as artificial genome design and construction. In this article, we summarized the studies of essential genes, overviewed the relevant databases, and discussed their practical applications. Furthermore, we provided an overview of the main applications of DEG and conducted comprehensive analyses based on its latest version. However, it should be noted that the essential gene is a dynamic concept instead of a binary one, which presents both opportunities and challenges for their future development.

Integration of Yeast Episomal/Integrative Plasmid Causes Genotypic and Phenotypic Diversity and Improved Sesquiterpene Production in Metabolically Engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The variability in phenotypic outcomes among biological replicates in engineered microbial factories presents a captivating mystery. Establishing the association between phenotypic variability and genetic drivers is important to solve this intricate puzzle. We applied a previously developed auxin-inducible depletion of hexokinase 2 as a metabolic engineering strategy for improved nerolidol production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and biological replicates exhibit a dichotomy in nerolidol production of either 3.5 or 2.5 g L-1 nerolidol. Harnessing Oxford Nanopore's long-read genomic sequencing, we reveal a potential genetic cause─the chromosome integration of a 2μ sequence-based yeast episomal plasmid, encoding the expression cassettes for nerolidol synthetic enzymes. This finding was reinforced through chromosome integration revalidation, engineering nerolidol and valencene production strains, and generating a diverse pool of yeast clones, each uniquely fingerprinted by gene copy numbers, plasmid integrations, other genomic rearrangements, protein expression levels, growth rate, and target product productivities. Τhe best clone in two strains produced 3.5 g L-1 nerolidol and ∼0.96 g L-1 valencene. Comparable genotypic and phenotypic variations were also generated through the integration of a yeast integrative plasmid lacking 2μ sequences. Our work shows that multiple factors, including plasmid integration status, subchromosomal location, gene copy number, sesquiterpene synthase expression level, and genome rearrangement, together play a complicated determinant role on the productivities of sesquiterpene product. Integration of yeast episomal/integrative plasmids may be used as a versatile method for increasing the diversity and optimizing the efficiency of yeast cell factories, thereby uncovering metabolic control mechanisms.

Epistemology of synthetic biology: a new theoretical framework based on its potential objects and objectives

Synthetic biology is a new research field which attempts to understand, modify, and create new biological entities by adopting a modular and systemic conception of the living organisms. The development of synthetic biology has generated a pluralism of different approaches, bringing together a set of heterogeneous practices and conceptualizations from various disciplines, which can lead to confusion within the synthetic biology community as well as with other biological disciplines. I present in this manuscript an epistemological analysis of synthetic biology in order to better define this new discipline in terms of objects of study and specific objectives. First, I present and analyze the principal research projects developed at the foundation of synthetic biology, in order to establish an overview of the practices in this new emerging discipline. Then, I analyze an important scientometric study on synthetic biology to complete this overview. Afterwards, considering this analysis, I suggest a three-level classification of the object of study for synthetic biology (which are different kinds of living entities that can be built in the laboratory), based on three successive criteria: structural hierarchy, structural origin, functional origin. Finally, I propose three successively linked objectives in which synthetic biology can contribute (where the achievement of one objective led to the development of the other): interdisciplinarity collaboration (between natural, artificial, and theoretical sciences), knowledge of natural living entities (past, present, future, and alternative), pragmatic definition of the concept of "living" (that can be used by biologists in different contexts). Considering this new theoretical framework, based on its potential objects and objectives, I take the position that synthetic biology has not only the potential to develop its own new approach (which includes methods, objects, and objectives), distinct from other subdisciplines in biology, but also the ability to develop new knowledge on living entities.

Parallel laboratory evolution and rational debugging reveal genomic plasticity to S. cerevisiae synthetic chromosome XIV defects

Synthetic chromosome engineering is a complex process due to the need to identify and repair growth defects and deal with combinatorial gene essentiality when rearranging chromosomes. To alleviate these issues, we have demonstrated novel approaches for repairing and rearranging synthetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae genomes. We have designed, constructed, and restored wild-type fitness to a synthetic 753,096-bp version of S. cerevisiae chromosome XIV as part of the Synthetic Yeast Genome project. In parallel to the use of rational engineering approaches to restore wild-type fitness, we used adaptive laboratory evolution to generate a general growth-defect-suppressor rearrangement in the form of increased TAR1 copy number. We also extended the utility of the synthetic chromosome recombination and modification by loxPsym-mediated evolution (SCRaMbLE) system by engineering synthetic-wild-type tetraploid hybrid strains that buffer against essential gene loss, highlighting the plasticity of the S. cerevisiae genome in the presence of rational and non-rational modifications.

Synergistic investigation of natural and synthetic C1-trophic microorganisms to foster a circular carbon economy

A true circular carbon economy must upgrade waste greenhouse gases. C1-based biomanufacturing is an attractive solution, in which one carbon (C1) molecules (e.g. CO2, formate, methanol, etc.) are converted by microbial cell factories into value-added goods (i.e. food, feed, and chemicals). To render C1-based biomanufacturing cost-competitive, we must adapt microbial metabolism to perform chemical conversions at high rates and yields. To this end, the biotechnology community has undertaken two (seemingly opposing) paths: optimizing natural C1-trophic microorganisms versus engineering synthetic C1-assimilation de novo in model microorganisms. Here, we pose how these approaches can instead create synergies for strengthening the competitiveness of C1-based biomanufacturing as a whole.

Visioning synthetic futures for yeast research within the context of current global techno-political trends

Yeast research is entering into a new period of scholarship, with new scientific tools, new questions to ask and new issues to consider. The politics of emerging and critical technology can no longer be separated from the pursuit of basic science in fields, such as synthetic biology and engineering biology. Given the intensifying race for technological leadership, yeast research is likely to attract significant investment from government, and that it offers huge opportunities to the curious minded from a basic research standpoint. This article provides an overview of new directions in yeast research with a focus on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and places these trends in their geopolitical context. At the highest level, yeast research is situated within the ongoing convergence of the life sciences with the information sciences. This convergent effect is most strongly pronounced in areas of AI-enabled tools for the life sciences, and the creation of synthetic genomes, minimal genomes, pan-genomes, neochromosomes and metagenomes using computer-assisted design tools and methodologies. Synthetic yeast futures encompass basic and applied science questions that will be of intense interest to government and nongovernment funding sources. It is essential for the yeast research community to map and understand the context of their research to ensure their collaborations turn global challenges into research opportunities.